the indirect Object

FIREFLIES

luminous roving puppets

The Fireflies are illuminated, interactive roving puppets each operated by one puppeteer. Suitable for day and night events, the Fireflies can change direction and pivot down to greet the people below them. Designed to explore tactile surfaces as well as fly, the Fireflies can extend their legs and land high up on a ledge to observe their surroundings.

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Day Performance

Their luminous painted bodies glow in the sun, and their colour-changing tails, light up eyes, and softly strobing wings remain visible even in harsh sunlight.

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Night Performance

As they pass through ambient urban lights into shadow their bodies turn from kinetic paintings into silhouettes. Lit from the inside, light pours from their segmented bodies.

Fireflies and the Environment

Fireflies are bioluminescent winged beetles. The flashing light sequences of their tails are used to attract and pair with a mate. Firefly colonies around the world are disappearing. Deforestation, light pollution, and toxins all contribute to environmental degradation leading to firefly decline. In the right environment, fireflies are a sign that the ecology is thriving. In Australia, Firefly colonies are found in the coastal forests and mangroves of New South Wales, Queensland and the Northern Territory.

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Fireflies and folklore from around the world

Fireflies are part of mythology and folklore in cultures on every inhabited continent. Fireflies have captured the imagination, and filled the night with wonder for millennia. They have been kept in transparent boxes as natural lanterns, revered as the souls of lost loved-ones, and used in rituals to attract love. Today in Mexico, farmers give firefly tours to save a forest from logging.